The artist: "This picture has gone all over the world."
First Train in Canada ... at least that's what the Montreal Daily Herald wanted Canadians to believe in August 1903. Those in authority at the time must have known the truth - at least as much as the rivet-counting truth can ever truly be known to any single person. And they kept the truth from Canadians for as long as they could.
And so, it seems that every successive generation* of Canadians must get dusty fingers looking at 6 by 9 inch booklets - be they the Bulletins of the The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society or those tiny old issues of Canadian Rail.
To discover the the truth for themselves.
*I think this will end after the Baby Boomers because only they have fond memories of using paper in the olden days before E-everything and those i-Smartphone things. I prefer to consider myself to be from Generation Jones. So ... either Baby Boomers, or Generation Jones, then ... I guess.
... I was just thinking ... maybe some Gen Xers - you never know. Leave a cardboard box of Canadian Rails on their doorstep, retreat to a safe distance to observe nature take its course, and note what they do with them.
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| from: Bulletin No 39; March 1936; Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. |
You can see the line of Canada's first railway - running between the points labelled as Laprairie and St Johns on the map above.
Flat bodies of water provided Canada's first transportation routes - at least during those fleeting weeks when water flowed as a liquid. With steam power, water transportation by steamboats could be reliably scheduled between settlements.
Requiring more capital and equipment, and far from being perfected as a technology, early steam locomotives could be used to transport people and freight. Early railways were often constructed with wooden rails. These rails were overlaid with strips of iron or steel - to protect the head of the 'rail' from the metal wheel treads of the rolling stock.
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Et tu, Mika?
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| from: Railways of Canada; Nick & Helma Mika; 1972; Mika Publishing. |
On this occasion, it was the Château de Ramezay
which poisoned the pristine chalice of Canadian historiography.
This is not the Dorchester.
It is a monstrous fraud!
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Quo vadis, VIA?
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| from: Rails Across Canada; 1986; VIA Rail Canada. |
Canada's national passenger railway uses the same graphic representation from the same source.
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| from: The Asian Dream; Donald MacKay; 1986; Douglas & McIntyre. |
Although I only now realize this as an adult ... not every Canadian child grew up in a home receiving a subscription of Canadian Rail - 11 issues per year. They only prepared one issue for July/August ... because these included the fleeting weeks when water flowed as a liquid.
... But, you know, sometimes, a CRHA member would take an extensive trip on the railways of Bulgaria (or Britain) and, except for 'Association News', this would take up the whole boring issue. There was always next month.
... But sometimes that same member (perhaps he was a 'big wheel' in the Association) sent them so much material that they did two issues of 'Bulgarian Railways'.
... But then ... if you've ever worked as a volunteer railway preservation organization newsletter editor - particularly when preparing the July/August edition - you will readily understand why it would be so tempting to spread 'Bulgarian Railways' over two months.
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| from: History of the Canadian National Railways; GR Stevens; 1973; Macmillan. |
... Honestly, I have no idea ...
Perhaps you might enjoy solving this puzzle.
... I'm up to my butt in counterfeit 2-4-2s at the moment.
This was in the official history of the CNR, by the way.
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| from: Bulletin No 39; March 1936; Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. |
Have you ever noticed that some artists, when they draw steam locomotives,
obscure the rods with dramatic clouds of steam (or people inspecting the rods)
so they don't have to be bothered?
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| from: Canadian Rail, June 1968, Issue 200; Canadian Railroad Historical Association. |
"Although some liberties have been taken with the locale, the portrayal of the Dorchester and the two first-class passenger cars is quite accurate."
... 'some liberties': Look! It's the Pirin Mountains ...
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| from: Bulletin No 39; March 1936; Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. |
Could this precise drawing be faithful to the original Stephenson Samson-model design?
I don't know anymore ...
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| from: Canadian Rail, January 1969; Canadian Railroad Historical Association. |
There were problems with the performance of the Dorchester, so they pawned it off on another early-stage railway as the line lengthened and operations expanded.
With the Dorchester's 0-4-0 wheel arrangement, it had the tendency to derail on the roughly-built track structure. It operated with a boiler pressure of around 60 pounds per square inch and, if you picked your spots, could run at 30 mph.
The engine Dorchester ... was named after 'Dorchester', the southern terminal of the Champlain & St Lawrence Railroad on the Richelieu River.
"Some time after her arrival in Canada the new locomotive was given a name. She was named 'Dorchester' in honour of the town of that name, which later became St. Johns, Quebec. The town was named 'Dorchester' about 1815, and from that year to 1835, was officially the namesake of Lord Dorchester, although the choice was not popular."from: The Champlain & St Lawrence Railroad - first years of operation; S S Worthen; Canadian Rail; June 1968.
... Sir Guy Carleton (1724-1808) 1st Baron Dorchester, Governor of Quebec, Governor of British North America etc.
Anyway, this British North America significance probably explains why they named another engine, purchased in 1851, Dorchester.
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This is a particularly beautiful model which deserves to be remembered.
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| from: A Thing of Beauty; Duncan Heriot; Canadian Rail, February 1970; Canadian Railroad Historical Association. |
"Canada's first steam locomotive for a public railway, the Champlain & St Lawrence Railroad is alive and well and will soon be living at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto. When the Centre opens in September, 1969, visitors will be treated to the remarkable sight of Canada's first tiny steam locomotive alongside a Canadian National "Northern" - a giant of the last days of steam. Both locomotives are models in 3 1/2 inch gauge."
"The exquisite model of the Dorchester is the work of Mr Harry Allin, well-known Canadian locomotive modeller of Bowmanville, Ontario. Mr Allin has designed and built the model to operate on a few pounds of compressed air. ... Construction occupied about ten months of Mr Allin's on-and-off time."
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| from: A Thing of Beauty; Duncan Heriot; Canadian Rail, February 1970; Canadian Railroad Historical Association. |
"A view of the Dorchester's works from below; pistons, connecting roads and piston rods all clearly defined. The firebox, flues and smokebox plate assembly is pictured on the left."
This fine model and this view ... show the design of the running gear. The pistons are mounted inside the frame ... and rods connect them to cranks on the axle of the rear driving wheels. The front driving wheels are powered by connecting rods outside the frame ... which connect the rear driving wheels to the front driving wheels.
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| from: Train Country; MacKay & Perry; 1994; Douglas & McIntyre. |
The Dorchester model, above, was built for the centennial of Canadian railroading. The Lachine Museum received this particular model and currently exhibits a fresh-looking representation of the Dorchester. A more accurate model - from the Château de Ramezay - might be preserved at Exporail - the Canadian Railway Museum at Delson, Quebec.
The NRC-developed streamlining for the 6400s was created during the 'railway aviation streamlining craze' - when North American railroads struggled to appear 'modern' to the patrons of their passenger trains. Important in such a re-design would be improving forward visibility through better smoke management. The overall cosmetic effect notwithstanding, you can see how the capacity of steam motive power developed over the century.
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The next three images explain the origin of the Dorchester travesty depiction of horror, hi-lited at the beginning of this piece.
It was finding this letter to the editor in the Society's 90-year-old bulletin which sent me on a search for my own in-house examples of this lazily-researched illustration which has found its way into so many modern railway history books. It motivated me to present a more faithful illustration of 'the first train in Canada'.
Seriously, I did benefit from 'always' knowing what the Dorchester looked like through Canadian Rail. The fact that this historically-bizarre drawing appeared in recent, generally well-researched books, has always baffled me.
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| from: from: Bulletin No 25; May 1931; Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. |
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| from: from: Bulletin No 25; May 1931; Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. |
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| from: from: Bulletin No 25; May 1931; Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. |
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An interesting example of an early Stephenson engine which was extensively modified to better suit it to primitive North American track appears below. Slightly older than the Dorchester, it does not have external connecting rods between the rear and front driving wheels.
If you remove all of the adaptations, you can see the Dorchester.
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| from: The First Quarter-Century of Steam Locomotives in North America; Smith Hempstone Oliver; 1956; Smithsonian Institution. |
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| from: The First Quarter-Century of Steam Locomotives in North America; Smith Hempstone Oliver; 1956; Smithsonian Institution. |